II
The last message which his mother sent him set his pulses on fire. He could not have kept away from Courson after that. Some strange instinct for which he despised himself, caused him to avoid the invalid's room after he had donned his uniform and made ready to start for Courson. He feared his uncle's gibes and his counsels of prudence, even though in his heart he knew that his uncle was right.
When he reached Courson he found his mother in a soft and tender mood; she and Fernande were sitting together under the trees in the garden. M. de Courson and Laurent had gone fishing, he was told, and the ladies professed themselves delighted at his company. Fernande said little, but her smile was kind, and she gave de Maurel her hand to kiss. She was sitting on a low stool beside her aunt, and now and then she shot a glance from her blue eyes at him—a glance which set him galloping once more to the land of dreams. But Madame la Marquise talked a great deal and with marked affection to her son, telling him something of her troubles, something of her anxieties about Laurent. She had no home, she said, for, of a truth, she could no longer live on the bounty of her brother. Laurent chafed at the thought of owing bread and board to his uncle.
De Maurel listened in silence to everything she said. Indeed, he was glad that his mother talked at such lengths. He would have sat here and listened for hours, all the while that he could watch Fernande, as she put in a word here and there, or made a movement to show her love and sympathy with her aunt. The sun came slanting in between the branches of the trees, and there was nothing in the world that Ronnay loved more than to watch the play of light upon Fernande's fair hair, or to see it creeping round the contour of her exquisite neck and shoulders, outlining their pearly hue with gold. When he went, he promised to come again the next day.